The present invention relates to a holding mechanism for holding a storage unit such as a hard disc drive (HDD), and an image forming apparatus such as a copier and printer having the holding mechanism.
As a conventional HDD holding mechanism, it is known to mount an HDD on an extended option board to facilitate mounting and removing a HDD on/from a laser printer (refer to Jpn. Pat. KOKAI Publication No. 4-212877). In this configuration, an HDD is mounted on an extended option board in a vibration-damping manner by fastening an upper structure provided with an HDD to a lower structure fixed to a frame of an extended option board through an elastic member. This facilitates mounting and removing an HDD on/from a main body of printer, and prevents transmission of vibration and shock to an HDD when mounting and dismounting an extended option board.
However, the elastic member is provided simply for elastically fastening the upper structure with HDD to the lower structure rigidly fixed to the frame, not for absorbing a shock applied externally to a printer in a specific direction. Namely, a shock externally applied to a printer includes a relatively large impact applied in a paper cassette drawing direction. A desirable damping structure absorbs effectively such a shock applied in a specific direction. An HDD is sensitive to external shock, and becomes unusable in the worst case if exposed to external shock. Improvement of the HDD is desired.
It is also known that when an HDD is accessed at a high speed, the load is increased and the HDD heats up. However, it is difficult to radiate the heat of an HDD in the above-mentioned conventional structure. In the above structure that an extended option board with HDD is inserted and placed in a printer housing, there is almost no space around the HDD for the heat to escape, and almost no radiation effect is expected. Particular in the above conventional structure, a control board provided with electrical components including a CPU heated to a relatively high temperature is placed close to an extended option board provided with an HDD, the heat from the electrical components is easily transmitted to the HDD, and the heat radiation is disturbed. A hot HDD decreases the reliability of operation.